Sander Dekker

SEATTLE (AP) - Preliminary work begins next week for an environmental impact study on plans to build a coal shipping terminal in Longview, Wash.

Cowlitz County, state and federal officials will take public comments on the scope of the environmental study between Aug. 16 and Nov. 18. Comments will be accepted by email, through regular mail, on the project website and in person at a series of community meetings.

Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview LLC wants to build and operate a coal export terminal on the site of the former Reynolds Aluminum smelter on the Columbia River in Longview.

The Longview terminal is one of three in the Northwest proposed to ship coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia. The others are at Cherry Point outside of Bellingham, Wash., and one in Boardman, Ore.

The scoping process will help Cowlitz County, the Washington Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decide what should be studied in their environmental reviews of the project.

The scoping process will decide whether the study should look at possible alternative sites, the potential impact on natural, cultural and community resources, possible adverse impacts and how to avoid or mitigate them.

Five community meetings will be held: Sept. 17 in Longview, Sept. 25 in Spokane, Oct. 1 in Pasco, Oct. 9 at the Clark County Fairgrounds, and Oct. 17 in Tacoma.

The next step in the multi-year process will be the actual environmental review. Then public comment will be taken agai...

In areas of Oregon not served by natural gas, there is a new fuel in town that is replacing heating oil: wood. And it’s saving money for schools and restoring forest lands. Natural gas is the preferred fuel for heating homes and businesses in Oregon due to its relatively low cost, but the majority of the state does not have access to natural gasand instead must rely on much more expensive petroleum heating oil.

Following the farm-to-table sustainable sourcing model, the forest-to-boiler movement is picking up steam. Oregon is among the leaders in U.S. biomass energy production, with a total of 19 projects up and running at schools, hospitals, airports and other facilities. Wood pellet boilers currently heat 12 schools—up from only two in 2010—and those that have switched from oil to wood pellets or wood chips are saving between $20,000 and $120,000 annually on heating costs.

Saving money and using a renewable fuel is great for small towns and schools, and it’s also great for the neighboring national forests. Since the decline of the timber industry in the early 1990s, forests in eastern Oregon have grown to an unhealthy, fire-prone condition. Restoration projects are underway each year to thin overcrowded and dead trees, but the U.S. Forest Service is still struggling to fund the amount of work necessary to return the forests to historic, fire-adapted conditions where forest fire is natural and beneficial instead of widely destructive.

The company that manages the soon-to-be-opened Benoa-Ngurah Rai-Nusa Dua toll road has been given one year to completely repair the environmental damage caused by the construction of the island’s first toll road.

“We hope that the company finishes the rehabilitation work earlier than the timeframe. The project’s environmental impact analysis (AMDAL) stipulates that the company has a maximum of one year to rehabilitate any environmental damage caused by the project,” Bali Environment Agency head, Nyoman Sujaya, said recently.

Construction of the toll road, which started in December 2011, has reached its final stage and the road is expected to become operational this month. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is slated to inaugurate the highway on July 13.

The project triggered loud complaints from environmental activists and NGOs, who claim that it is inflicting irreversible damage on the coastal areas and mangrove forests spanning the island’s southern shore.

The complaints grew when the developer piled up limestone in the shallow waters off the coast to provide footings and a supply road for the construction of reinforced concrete piers. Limestone shoring was considered the best technique to build the 12.7-kilometer road, as around 34,000 concrete pillars had to be installed...